Quote:In July, the Trump administration announced it would establish a $12 billion bailout fund for farmers impacted by the president’s escalating trade war. Months later, though, the government has delivered only a small fraction of what was promised. By Monday, The New York Times reported, just $838 million had been disbursed. At the same time, new evidence suggests some of that money isn’t reaching its intended targets.

On Monday, the Environmental Working Group (EWG), an environmental research nonprofit, released a report on the recipients of bailout funds, based on limited data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). In its analysis of 87,704 payments under the program—a total of$360 million in aid, less than half of what’s been paid out so far—EWG found signs that, while the majority of farmers have received no bailout money, others appear to have taken more than their fair share.

The group found 85 farms collecting well above USDA’s $125,000 payment limit under the bailout program. The highest-paid farm, Red Gum Planting Co. No. 2, which grows soybeans, had received $439,120 as of October 31. The top 10 recipients in the data set all received more than $280,000. The same farm can technically collect multiple payments if it’s structured in a way that includes multiple owners. For example, if two brothers owned a farm and called each other partners, they would each be eligible for subsidy claims in some cases.

It’s not the first time that the bailout program has been criticized for misdirecting aid.The group also found that more than 1,000 “city slickers,” or people who live in the 50 largest cities in the nation, received bailout payments. This trend may also suggest stacked payouts in some cases: Under the 2014 farm bill, spouses, grandparents, siblings, and adult children are also eligible for subsidies in certain circumstances, according to EWG. The average payment to city dwellers was $881.

It's actually the simplest I've seen in my decades of doing this.
Just report bushels and payment comes in a week.
If you're spot checked you have to back up what you claimed with evidence.
You have to have a share of the crop to get a payment, cash rent landlords get "nothing". (it keeps the rents high)
City people that own the farm and sharecrop it with a farmer are thus eligible and rightly so.